Sunday, June 18, 2017

Lamis Deek spreads a modern day blood libel

Lamis Deek of the National Lawyers Guild has no trouble spreading a modern day blood libel.

Deek, an attorney, has forwarded a completely unsubstantiated article that claims:

A Palestinian child from Beit Furik town in Nablus survived certain death on Wednesday after Jewish settlers kidnapped and tortured him inside their settlement.

Local sources told reporters that eight-year-old Bashar Ghazal was found in the illegal Itamar settlement, handcuffed and injured as a result of his exposure to severe torture at the hands of extremist settlers.

The sources added that the Israeli occupation army handed over the boy to the Palestinian Authority liaison office on Wednesday night, confirming that the settlers brutally tortured the child and burned his skin with molten plastic.No, Lamis Deek did not attempt to fact check before forwarding this modern day blood libel.

The Israeli military handed over to Palestinian police an apparently mentally challenged Palestinian child who walked up to the fence of a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, the army said.

The 8-year-old child was spotted walking in an area adjacent to the Itamar settlement, near Nablus, on Wednesday morning. IDF troops were called out to investigate.

When the soldiers started speaking with the boy, who apparently had a mental disability, they noticed that his body was covered in “signs of harsh physical abuse,” an army spokesperson said.

The child told them that he was being abused at home,” the spokesperson said.

According to the Palestinian Authority mouthpiece Safa, the signs of abuse included burns from molten plastic being poured on him.

Bashar Abd al-, 8, who, the IDF said, told soldiers he was abused at home after he was picked up by the army as he walked outside a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank on June 15, 2017. (Safa)

The army dismissed reports in Palestinian media that the boy was kidnapped and beaten by settlers at Itamar. The spokesperson noted that at no point did the boy enter the settlement nor did settlers approach him.

The child was identified by Palestinian media as Bashar Abd al-Ghazal of the nearby village of Beit Furik.

According to Safa, al-Ghazal’s father died on Wednesday. The news site did not elaborate.

The IDF spokesperson said the soldiers gave the child “water, food and grape juice” before handing him over to PA security services.